Agriculture

Nebraska’s commercial and noncommercial pesticide applicators seeking first-time certification or recertification of their license to use or purchase restricted-use pesticides in 2016, can get training through the Nebraska Extension Pesticide Safety Education Program.

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Clay Center, NE 2015 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reminded farmers and ranchers that the next general enrollment period for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) begins today, Dec. 1, 2015, and ends on Feb. 26, 2016. December 2015, also marks the 30th anniversary of CRP, a federally funded program that assists agricultural producers with the cost of restoring, enhancing and protecting certain grasses, shrubs and trees to improve water quality, prevent soil erosion and reduce loss of wildlife habitat.

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By Jacob Schlick

by Jenny Rees

This week, I wish to share more detail on two upcoming programs that may be of interest to you. With the amount of grain in storage, or that has yet to be marketed, along with the push from industry and consumers to reduce environmental footprints while being more “sustainable,” the following two programs hopefully are of interest to you. Post-Harvest Grain Marketing Workshop: Post-Harvest Grain Marketing workshops will be offered at ten sites across Nebraska In November and December to assist grain farmers in creating a written post-harvest marketing plan that is right for them.

“Sustainability is sometimes like the weather, a lot of talk, but we don’t always know what to do about it,” says Charles Shapiro, UNL Professor in Agronomy and Horticulture. While sustainability can be discussed for a long time, efficiency can be measured. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension in cooperation with the Corn and Soybean Boards is conducting workshops to introduce Nebraska corn and soybean producers to a tool that measures key farm efficiency measures.

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By Jenny Rees

Agricultural Tour: On Thursday, a group of Nebraska Ag Extension Educators, with a few spouses, headed on an agricultural trip through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. We had excellent stops and the trip allowed for programming discussions and building relationships. We also went to the Nebraska vs. Purdue football game. Our first stop was a tilapia fish farm in Chillicothe, MO, called Quixotic (http://www.quixoticfarming.com/). It was an absolutely fascinating stop learning how one of the partners who is also a large hog farmer, was brought in to the partnership to convert an empty Wal-Mart building into a fish farm.

By Jenny Rees

Harvest has greatly progressed in the past few weeks and corn is really dry. Many have commented on the stalk quality this year being poor, regardless of fungicide use. We just had an extreme amount of disease pressure this year attributing to that. Thankful for even a little rain to settle some of the dust. Please continue to be safe with the remainder of this harvest season! Additional Grazing Study: A five-year fall grazing study (December—January) was conducted in an irrigated continuous no-till cornfield at Brule, NE, to determine the effect of corn residue removal via baling corn residue or fall grazing on subsequent corn yields.

Dr. Gary Rupp, veterinarian, UNL emeritus professor and founding director of the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center, was one of two veterinarians elected to the Cattle Production Veterinarian Hall of Fame at the American Association of Bovine Practitioners Annual Conference in September.

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